‘I am an Artist’

As the film opens, men trickle into Pelican Bay State Prison’s B-facility gym to take their places in a wide circle of folding chairs, and Samuel Nault’s even voice plays over the footage: “We are all creators, every single one of us. It is the chaos and pain that we created which ultimately brought us to a place like this.”

One by one, participants in the theater class run by Dell’Arte International (DAI) facilitators look into the camera, introduce themselves and share their experiences with the class and their lives in prison. A man with dark, close-cropped hair and a pen in the pocket of his blue institutional scrub top puts his chin forward, gives his name and says, “I am an artist incarcerated in Pelican Bay State Prison.”

We’re All We Need, the 30-minute documentary created by filmmaker Malcolm DeSoto, captures the men incarcerated in California’s only super-maximum security prison as they take part in workshop classes and perform their original show Variety Pack. The performance, held before Dell’Arte alumni and community members, is comprised of singing, poetry and skits created over the school’s 20-week Prison Arts Theatre Program under California’s Arts in Corrections program. As participants attest in the film, the classes can prove transformational in terms of how they see themselves and their possibilities, and how they move through the world within the prison’s walls and beyond.

Arts in Corrections is funded by the Division of Rehabilitative Programs within the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) with an $8 million budget, according to the organization’s website. It’s administered by the California Arts Council (CAC), which runs programs in the 35 adult correctional facilities spread throughout the state.

Classes spanning from literature to traditional arts are “designed to have a positive impact on the social and emotional well-being of people experiencing incarceration, promoting healing and interpersonal transformation both inside and outside of the boundaries of their institutions.” The approach, as outlined on the website, is grounded in basic human respect for those in prison, accountability and recovery from trauma, rather than punishment.

Those who are interested at Pelican Bay can sign up, earning credits for attending that, as with good conduct credits, can go toward shortening their sentences.

“And I like to think they stay for the psychological benefits,” says Janessa Johnsrude, laughing.

A little more than a decade ago, Johnsrude, now program director of the Dell’Arte Prison Arts Theatre Program, got an email about the CAC reinstating funding for the Arts in Corrections program. Among her colleagues, she says, “There was a few of us that thought this could be a really worthwhile program.” The first time out, DAI staff worked with students and Sharon Fennel, known as DJ Sista Soul on KHSU, who was already connected with Pelican Bay’s population through her radio show.

At first, DAI operated its program under subcontractor the William James Association, which has been promoting arts in prisons since 1970. A couple years later, with the William James Association’s encouragement, Johnsrude notes, DAI went out on its own, continuing with much the same path and structure. “We had enough of an administrative backbone that we could support our own contract,” she says.

The Arts in Corrections ethos dovetails with DAI and Johnsrude’s views. “Arts allows access to experiencing your humanity,” says Johnsrude. That access can be vital for people in prison in terms of both healing from trauma and coping with imprisonment. “When someone goes to prison, they might just be labeled a prisoner, sometimes identified as just a number.”

The theater arts class is a respite from being called inmates, convicts or criminals. Here, they are “participants,” “collaborators,” “students” or “artists.” And while how they got to the prison may come up as part of an exercise or project, Johnsrude and her fellow facilitators don’t ask. “It’s not really my job to know,” she says. “I think that it doesn’t really pertain to what we’re doing. And they’ve already been judged by the law; it’s not my place to do that again. I think it’s been helpful for me not to know, actually.”

She says she’s had some students “showing up and being like, ‘This is not for me.’ And that’s totally fine. … Theater isn’t for everyone on the outside, so why would it be on the inside?” Others are hesitant at first.

Over the phone from Pelican Bay, Nault, who’s been incarcerated for 11 years, says he was taking college courses via College of the Redwoods, including Johnsrude’s drama class, when he saw a Dell’Arte class in session. The dynamics of the exercise, a scene with a princess and a dragon, intrigued him and he was struck with “the desire to try something new and be vulnerable, a little scary,” he says. “It’s something you just don’t do in a level-4 prison,” he says of the playful exercise. “Maybe it’s the fact that I didn’t have a lot of that as a kid.”

But theater class has gone beyond playfulness for Nault, who explains, “It restores the semblance of humanity. Being incarcerated can be dehumanizing. … It can cause you to feel ostracized and isolated,” despite what he sees as improvements between inmates and staff in recent years. “The tools we learn in the program and the fact that people are willing to come in here and teach us these things,” have made him feel “valued.”

Nault likes to write but didn’t immediately take to performing. “At first it was hard to get comfortable because, like, naturally I’m very shy … as the program progressed, I became more comfortable with myself,” says Nault. “It’s a culmination of physically being seen, of having people to notice you and what you’re doing physically, and talking … having that attention on you and that light on you was very uncomfortable.”

Eventually, he says he found he could lean in and do things not normally allowed in daily prison life. “There’s a culture here in prison and it’s perpetuated by the inmates and can be by the staff, too,” he says. “It can be violent, it can be dangerous … you’re expected to act a certain way and not show your emotions. And toxic masculinity … is very prevalent, especially in here.” He says the temporary reprieve from that culture helped him with his personal goal of becoming more outgoing and improving communication skills through his coursework. “If I can act like a princess, then I can give my speech in front of a class.”

At the start of the classes Johnsrude teaches with Dell’Arte faculty member Samantha Williams-Gray, Johnsrude says, “I always promise to be the goofiest one … but I’m often outdone. … Sometimes you witness someone over the 20-week term and see them do a 180 and turn into the most vibrant and engaged person … by the end.” In one group, she says students called it “taking off your cool jacket.” Once the metaphorical layer is shed, you can “relax your shoulders, be goofy, act like a kid. How wonderful is that in this hypermasculine environment where that’s discouraged?”

Exercises might include expression through design, music, storytelling or body work focusing on physical awareness and movement, mostly in groups. “Art offers the opportunity for transformation, especially theater,” says Johnsrude. “The transformation that’s possible, especially in groups is exponentially profound when it comes to theater work.” Collaboration, she explains, requires communication and empathy, learning when to lead or follow. There is personal exploration, but students also track each other’s progress and celebrate achievements. “Especially in prison, that’s a beautiful thing,” she says.

Johnsrude says she sees many students expressing themselves through writing or acting for the first time. And, just as importantly, she sees them experiencing acceptance from their peers upon taking the risk and finding they share common experiences and feelings. “To open up and be accepted, not just in prison — that feeling, to be accepted, you want to give it back,” she says, adding it’s a powerful experience to occupy “a space to see others and be seen for themselves, not who they pretend to be.”

Self-discovery has been an important element in Nault’s experience with the DAI theater program. “Coming into prison, I guess I was kind of lost,” he says. “You get stuck trying to be something else that we’re really not.” He explains that how he chooses to do his time day to day — his “program” — has evolved. “For the first few years, I wasn’t programming or positively programming … . When I was in the SHU or in the hole, I was like, ‘I’m the one who keeps getting myself into these situations’ and it makes you reevaluate … who are you really because we’re stripped down,” he says. “Finding purpose and identity is important if you’re trying to move forward and trying to change.”

In We’re All We Need, Nault talks about what motivates him to change himself and others: “I do feel like I owe a debt to society and to my family and the people that I did hurt,” later referring to “communities we have terrorized.”

Before prison, he says over the phone, he was making choices focused on the wrong things. Theater training, Nault says, has been part of his understanding of the roots of his own issues and taking accountability for his actions. “Lots of people get hurt based on those decisions and we gotta get back to that,” he says. “If you’re playing a role, you have to dive into those feelings … . While doing that, you’re also addressing things that have happened to you. If you’re trying to act sad or angry, you have to dive into that.” That diving in was a challenge for Nault, an “invitation to venture into uncharted territory” that included memories and emotions he usually suppressed. “We’re constantly told not to say anything. ‘No snitching,'” he says. “As soon as you’re locked up, what does your lawyer tell you? ‘Don’t say anything,’ ‘You have the right to remain silent.'”

The trauma-informed facilitation methods Johnsrude and her colleagues use centers on “not what’s wrong with you but what happened,” paying particular attention to nervous system responses. Many of the participants have experienced trauma in their lives outside, whether as children or adults, she points out, and prison itself can be traumatizing.

Theater being a physical artform, nervous system regulation is an important aspect of the classes. Johnsrude explains that students learn to observe how emotions show up in the body’s physical responses, like increased heartrate under stress, tracking and exploring them in a safe environment, in themselves and others. They learn grounding techniques and ways to regulate those responses, too. Facilitators teach how to process overwhelming feelings like stage fright, sometimes by orienting, looking around the space and paying attention to how what they observe makes them feel in their bodies.

Learning about his body’s response to trauma through theater training has been valuable for Nault in the debate classes that are part of his communications degree coursework, as well as in his daily life. “When you’re experience stress or something happens … a lot of it is in your body. You tense up and it’s in your breathing.”

Instructors, he says, would ask where he felt it — hands, a tightening chest? “I can feel myself tense up and I can recognize that and then … not make any rash decisions and not stay in that state of mind,” Nault says. “It gives you a little more agency in how you react in situations. I’m not a reactive person — not anymore.” Mindfulness, he says, can override “animal instincts,” and not be derailed by the actions or reactions of others. “It helps you know and empathize with people, too, to recognize when someone’s in that state of mind and not take it personally.”

Julie Douglas, head of DAI’s arts engagement, initially guided Professional Training Program students through their in-person and remote work at Pelican Bay before the program shifted to faculty facilitators. She also taught Alexander somatic technique at the institution herself. “It’s about using your body efficiently; it’s about discovering tensions and habits” to prevent injury, unneeded tension and stress.

Starting with simple movements, like lying on the ground, Douglas would ask her students, “Are you collapsing your body or pushing your body up?” Simple movements reveal reflexive and sometimes unnecessary postures and strains. One exercise exploring the weight of the arms and legs led to participants skipping. “There was just such delight that happened in the skipping,” among men who said they hadn’t done it since childhood, she says. “The class is such a lovely bubble of safety and comfortability,” she says. “They’re able to be silly in the space. They’re able to express themselves in this way and get to know each other.”

This kind of theater training, Johnsrude says, is “highly adaptive and specialized for the individual.” Exercises starting with a prop can go in any direction, as can opening the door to a childhood memory to be explored through meditation and writing. In one exercise, participants focus on a memory and choose an object they recall in the background. Then they write about that moment from the object’s point of view, develop it into a monologue and perform it for each other. It’s not a therapy exercise, she says, but, “It’s probably going to go that direction.”

Johnsrude recalls, “One guy picked a window in his childhood home and played with the duality of being seen through and seeing everything.” Another man performed a monologue from the motorcycle he and his father used to ride. The slight emotional distance from the memory through the object can allow for another way to look at it, sometimes an illuminating shift in perspective.

Another exercise involves students picking three words that are opposite to how they’d describe themselves. Starting from those words, they develop a walk, a voice and eventually a whole character — someone completely different to inhabit for a while.

The adaptivity of theater has come in handy when the curriculum has had to shift due to lockdowns, investigations at the prison, staffing issues, weather and during the COVID-19 shutdown in 2020. Classes continued through the scrappy use of paper packets and use of the prison’s internal TV channel. DAI facilitators who were in Bali submitted videos to be followed like an exercise video. The students at Pelican Bay even created characters for the Bali program, where participants created shadow puppets for a nine-month project that eventually played on the institution’s channel.

The prison’s rules require adaptation, too. Stage combat is forbidden and a certain amount of space must be maintained between people, which means modifying some games. Every object must be pre-authorized and there can be no glass containers or sharp metal. Facilitators cannot hand out much of anything besides paper and there are protocols to follow if the yard is locked down. Facilitators fill out questionnaires and undergo background checks.

None of this seems to daunt Johnsrude, who also teaches through College of the Redwoods’ program at Pelican Bay online, using paper packets. “Theater is special in that way,” she says. “We don’t need anything but ourselves to make theater pieces or explore ourselves. We’re lucky.” Sometimes, she says, her students meet in their spare time to practice or make props and sets with cardboard or whatever is available. In class, they turn chairs into ships and beanies into wolf ears. A favorite aspect of theater for her is asking, “How do we tell this story with what we have?”

Correctional Lt. Serafin Leon, who serves as public information officer at Pelican Bay State Prison, took over supervising the class from another officer who retired, observing and approving props and activities as needed, including during filming. “I enjoyed it,” he says. “I was able to observe the team building and what they were able to create.” As participants, some of whom he was familiar with, opened up in the class environment, “I was able to see a different side of what they were into, and able to see their passion for acting or writing or poetry.”

Nault recalls making props from cardboard and packaging materials that came into the prison, whatever they could get approved. “A lot of the challenges are just the conditions of our confinement. … Lt. Leon allowed us to do more and that’s appreciated, the people who allow us to bring positive things into the prison,” he says. “I do just wanna thank Janessa and Samantha for taking the time … just taking that time to come in and be with us … . I know it could be challenging,” he says, noting the travel, the work of creating classes, the institution’s rules and regulations regarding bringing the class and materials to the prison. “But those are things that we’re going to take with us for the rest of our lives.”

Of the performance before an audience of DAI faculty and community members documented in the film, Nault says, “That was something that was really a turning point and it felt good to put on a show.” The weeks of work creating the pieces and the accompanying zine, the collaboration on the performance and the feedback from the audience made manifest the progress the students made in the class, tools they could take to their lives beyond the Pelican Bay. “It prepares us for that [leaving] and reminds us that we’re not just thrown away and like society’s trash.”

Douglas hopes to return to teaching at Pelican Bay, largely because of the students themselves. “They’re other artists, they’re human, they have ideas and expression,” she says. “They want to engage with other people and that deep human connection found in a place like that — that can be very harsh and hard — is really needed and it feels really special to be able to do that.” It’s gratifying work for her, both as a teacher and an artist, she says. “They’re really open to it. They’re really hungry for it and as an artist, that’s the point: to be able to connect with people and share stories.”

Teaching as a woman in a men’s facility, says Johnsrude, has been “an interesting journey … it’s a notable dynamic. … I feel like I get respect in that environment but I’m also aware that I might be representative of a certain dynamic in their lives, like a mother or a sister,” roles she feels a responsibility not to fall into as a teacher. Often, being the only woman in the circle requires maintaining boundaries “in order to protect the professional atmosphere of the class.”

Johnsrude is also working on a program for the Humboldt County jail that is scheduled to launch in September. Shorter terms will require developing a drop-in program and this time she may be working with women.

Some of the planning and evaluating of the classes happens in the car ride back with Williams-Gray during the six-week term. But a couple former students who’ve left the prison have shared their input as well. “We have a returned citizen committee that’s kind of unofficial,” Johnsrude says. “Who better to inform us on what people in that environment need than people [who’ve lived] in that environment?”

After the documentary started airing on Pelican Bay’s institutional channel, Leon says interest grew. “The population started to notice the program,” and more people seemed to want to be part of it. Leon sees the state offering more programs to prepare participants for returning to society, such as dog training and worm farm programs, as positive. “I see a change,” he says, “Everyone grows a little by being part of something … better communication, better handling themselves to where it makes it safer for everyone.” That includes better communication between staff and inmates. “Some of these guys didn’t have opportunity on the outside for education, or it was frowned upon in their family to participate in stuff like that.” He sees participants paying it forward as well, like the still incarcerated former student who now teaches crochet. He’s one of several students taking a turn as teacher, leading clubs and classes in sports or crafts themselves.

For Nault, participating in the documentary “was an honor” and an opportunity for “showcasing the transformation we’ve been making.” Before it aired on the institutional channel, he had a little trepidation. “I’d joke around and be like, ‘Oh, we’re not gonna be around for much longer once they see what’s in it,'” he says, chuckling. “Oh, man. I was literally singing Katy Perry.” But the response he’s gotten has been good. “I would get guys constantly talking to me about it and just have positive things to say,” he says, including some of them asking how they can get involved.

As for any judgement or negativity about the documentary or his theater work, he says, “It doesn’t affect me, those types of critiques, not anymore.” Six weeks ago, he started a basketball group, an effort to let teamwork and positivity “transform the space” in a similar way to his theater classes. “Just knowing what a safe space can do … those little moments if felt like you weren’t in prison,” he says. “Those are the things I try to hold onto and spend my time and energy on pursuing while I’m in here.”

Asked about the future, Nault says, “I think my future looks exactly like it is now. The only difference is I’ll be free in society,” and, he hopes, back with his son and ailing mother. “I’m living my future right now.”

Working with at-risk youth appeals to him as a continuation of the positive path he’s found. “I think I know what I needed when I was young and beginning to get in trouble,” he says, like mentorship from someone with whom he shared experiences. He says he knows the world has changed since he went entered prison 13 years ago but maybe not too much.

Right now, Nault is learning about biographic mediation, specifically the way institutions tell people’s stories through documentation of personal information, labels and records. “There’s always somebody telling our stories,” he says, noting news media, police files and court documents. “When I was committing crimes over a decade ago, it’s telling a story of who I am based on what I did 10 years ago. ‘Oh, you’re a criminal. You robbed somebody, you’re a robber.” But he says there’s more to his story now than his record can tell.

Nault says he’s not sure if his turn at introducing himself for the camera made the cut for the documentary. “It’s a little awkward saying stuff in a camera that’s in your face,” he says with a laugh. Still, he did it — looked into the lens and announced himself as an artist.

“That’s the great thing about it,” he says. “We get to say who we are.”

The documentary We’re All We Need premieres at Dell’Arte’s Carlo Theatre at 7:30 p.m. on Aug. 1 ($15). Discussion follows. Visit dellarte.com for more information.Jennifer Fumiko Cahill (she/her) is the managing editor at the Journal. Reach her at (707) 442-1400 ext. 106 or jennifer@northcoastjournal.com. Follow her on Bluesky @JFumikoCahill.

This article appears in ‘I Am an Artist’.